SILVER SWAN AWARD FOR SCHOOL OF LIFE SCIENCES
 Keele's
School of Life Sciences has been awarded the prestigious silver Athena
SWAN award for excellence in recruiting and progressing women in
science, engineering and technology (SET).
The awards recognise schools that look to attract
and promote women in SET careers. Universities subscribing to the
Athena Swan Charter – supported by the UK Resource Centre for Women in
Science, Engineering and Technology and the Equality Challenge Unit –
are eligible for the SWAN awards, which assess UK universities in their
role as science employers.
 Dr
Anne Loweth, Head of the School of Life Sciences, said: "The School put
an enormous amount of work into this application, which has been
recognised by a silver award. We used the submission process as an
opportunity for an in-depth survey of staff in the School, which helped
raised awareness of how workplace issues affect all staff and that
gender equality is not just about women or mothers. We plan to make
this an annual exercise."
The judges congratulated the School on "an
impressive submission" and were pleased to see the efforts to attract
female students, including those from non-traditional backgrounds, by
the use of female role models.
The latest SWAN awards will be presented at a
ceremony at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens on Tuesday, 29 September,
when the keynote speaker will be Keele's Vice-Chancellor, Professor
Dame Janet Finch.
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INTERNATIONAL JOINT PROJECT GRANT
 Dr
Raphael Hirschi, Research Institute for the Environment, Physical
Sciences and Applied Mathematics, has been awarded an International
Joint Project grant from the Royal Society, worth £10,500.
The grant will support collaborative visits between
the groups of Dr Hirschi (astrophysics group) and Dr Thomas Rauscher
(University of Basel, Switzerland) during the next two years, for the
project entitled "Comprehensive study of nuclear reaction rate
uncertainties for massive stars".
The grant will strengthen the research links between
the two groups and boost their theoretical work on understanding how
chemical elements like carbon, oxygen, krypton and strontium are
produced in massive stars.
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UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIP
 Dr
Claire Fox, Research Institute for Life Course Studies, and 2nd year
Psychology student, Kerri Lyford, have been awarded a British
Psychological Society (BPS) Undergraduate Research Assistantship
bursary of £1,600 for a project to develop a Humour Styles
Questionnaire (HSQ) for children and young people.
The aim of the Undergraduate Research Assistantship
Scheme is to provide up to 10 researchers with the opportunity to
provide an undergraduate with 'hands on' experience of research during
the summer vacation, to gain an insight into scientific research and to
encourage them to consider an academic career.
Claire, pictured, and Kerri visited seven primary
and secondary schools across Derbyshire and Staffordshire in June and
July, administering the child HSQ to 651 pupils, aged 9-15 years. Kerri
is due to present the findings in poster form at the annual BPS
conference in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 2010. The BPS scheme is a
prestigious award that marks Kerri out as a future researcher and
potential academic. In the award letter, the Chair of the BPS Research
Board stated that the application had been identified as 'exceptional'.
With the support of an award of £5,029 from the
British Academy, Claire will conduct further research during the autumn
to provide final validation of the questionnaire.
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INSURANCE AND POWER: THE SECURITY OF EMERGENT LIFE
Dr Luis Lobo-Guerrero, School of Politics, International Relations
and Philosophy/Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice, this
week gave a keynote address at the Norwegian School of Management in
Oslo.
The presentation, Insurance and Power: A Genealogy of Securing Emerging Life,
was based on his work on insurance as a liberal security technology and
took place within the conference 'Societal risk in an insurance and
re-insurance perspective', organised by the BI Centre for Risk and
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SUMMER OPEN DAY AT KEELE
Last weekend saw the second open day of the summer organised for
students considering where to apply for 2010 entry. Over 800 students
and their families attended a series of talks and other activities
offered by academic schools, with a further 160 students interested in
the programmes offered by Nursing and Midwifery visiting the Clinical
Education Centre at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.
Thanks go to everyone involved in another successful day, which provided a good start to the application cycle for 2010.
FA TRAINING COURSE FOR STARS OF THE FUTURE
The English Schools Football Association has been putting the
football stars of the future through their paces at Keele this
week.
The week long instructional training course for 80 ESFA schoolboys
(under-18 age group) is delivered with an objective of improving the
personal performance of the players who were picked to attend after
extensive skill and match practice. |
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